IT'S FEBRUARY FIRST! FINALLY! :)

Stay tuned for more faces, OK?  The 29 Faces Challenge has BEGUN!!!!

The challenge hasn't even begun, and I'm having fun!

February first is getting closer!  Less than a week, and the 29 Faces Challenge begins!  I've been doing a few more, from Harry Potter stills.  Have other things to do too, and my pipes froze up mid-week, so there was a plumbing "issue".  (No, they didn't burst, thank goodness!  Just had no running water for most of Wednesday, and even when fixed, I had to RUN more water to keep it from recurring.  Still horridly cold, but not as bitter as it was then.  For the past two days, we had a heat wave in the twenties!)   OK, so here are a few more that got done before all that happened.  Have done three more today, but no photos yet.  Oh, and I mentioned the challenge to some of the folks at the local art league meeting.  Perhaps there will be some interest there, too.

Faces in the Dark

I have been sketching, quite a bit!  Mostly scenes (or rather, faces) from Lord of the Rings (all three movies) but also from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Have some other movies in mind to do this with, too!  Some sketches have been quite successful, others.... heh heh, less so!  I'll post some of my favorites, here.

Also, I have "signed up, " as it were, for a Facebook group's challenge, 29 Faces.  It's to start on the first of February, and go for 29 days.  (Hey, wait... this isn't a leap year!!!  Umm, I think the concept began last year.)  The challenge is to do 29 faces, in any medium, style, size, substrate -- and be done by the end of February.  The mood I've been in?  Yeah, with my eyes closed, I can do this!!!  (OK, not literally, of course!  But I'm thinking very positively, here!)

And so, to a few of the pieces I have already done, in recent weeks.  Still have not got the editing issues fixed; blue-shifted works are with flash, and yellow-shifted ones are without flash. 

 

The Harry Potter swap, most recent

OK! Took me long enough, didn't it?!  

Here are the only decent photos I have of the latest Harry Potter item.  It's just one frame, with small sculpts of Ron on the chess piece (HPSS) and Hermione with a book.  There are two sketches I did of movie stills, one from the first movie (Harry's delight at the results of his first unintentional magical experiences) and one from the last movie (the Elder wand chooses the wizard).  The color is horribly blue-shifted, and I cannot get edits to save to the computer, since a new editing program was installed in November.  That's why a pic of the whole thing isn't worth showing, since it's too tiny.  I thought I could crop it, but cannot.

Catching up!

Have done so very little with art this whole year!   But I have just finished a Harry Potter Crafts Group swap item.  I'll post a photo or two once I get word that it has been received by my swap partner.  I sure hope it gets there safely, and that she likes it!

On another note, I have been sketching a fair bit, in the past couple of days.  In preparation for the release of the new Peter Jackson movie, "The Hobbit" (part one) I'm re-watching "Lord of the Rings" on dvds.  It occurred to me the other night to make some sketches of the characters, and I've already done a few from the second movie, "The Two Towers".  If I feel they are good enough, I'll take photos soon, and post.  I'm no Alan Lee, by a LONG shot, but I'm feeling fairly good about these.

That's all I have for now! 

Delinquent -- mea culpa!

I haven't been blogging,  because I haven't been making art this summer.  Finished a couple of projects in late June, and then nothing until starting a couple a week or two ago.  Those are not done yet, so there are still no art pix to post.  However, what I have done with my summer is to attend to my badly neglected gardens.  Since I started sculpting, they have gotten less and less attention, and 2010 and '11 were just bad, emotionally.  Best leave that alone.  

But I do have good news!  The plants I cared most about were the daylilies (hybrids, mostly).  I had a sizable collection of them, would have had well over 300 different types of known, named daylilies, if they'd all lived, from the start.  The start was in 2002, and I'd simply lost a few from whatever reasons.   In 2005, I began sculpting, and that was the year I last added daylilies to the collection, moving/dividing several clumps in 2008 because of the new dogs.  

Daylilies do NOT "thrive on neglect," as some folks would say.  But they are surprisingly hardy, and I was indeed surprised at their tenacity.   Yes, I lost several plants outright, mostly due to hostile takeovers by pernicious other plants: namely, blackberry, vinca, and forsythia.  Many more were alive, but did not have the strength to send up a scape and bloom, so remained unidentified.  Yes, I had to identify each plant, to know for sure what was there, and that was no easy task, in many cases.  Most labels had been lost, but I had some dated notes to go by, and a few photos.  Those which could be identified, were "cataloged" so to speak, and at least temporarily labeled.  Many have been divided, and/or moved.  And yes, I bought several more new ones, this year.  (BAD Janet!  But if you're going to have an addiction, this one isn't too bad!)

I'll put up just a few pics of the daylilies that were identified and newly photo'd.  

"IMOBILUS!"

OK then!  I can now show you the piece I've been working on (besides the dark-haired fairy in black and burgundy garb) for the past couple of months.  It's Hermione Granger, in the Harry Potter series, this one "The Chamber of Secrets".  The inept teacher has unleashed a cageful of Cornish pixies ("Devilish tricky little blighters!") and cannot manage them.  Only Hermione has the presence of mind and the talent to get them to uhh... hold still.  She points her wand, and shouts, "IMOBILUS!" the spell needed to freeze them in mid-air.  The kids can then "nip them back into their cage".  YEAH!  GIRL POWER!  It's one of my favorite Hermione moments, and there are quite a few good ones!